How well do you know your spine and what it needs?
Does your doctor? Does your insurance provider (ie,
Medicare)? Vancouver Disc Centers prides itself on knowing the
spine of each of our Vancouver chiropractic patients. Your Vancouver
chiropractor assesses your low back when there is
low back pain, your neck when there’s neck pain, your neck when there’s arm pain, your low back when there is
leg pain, your thoracic spine when there’s thoracic
(and even neck and low back) pain. Your chiropractor knows your
spine. Sadly, sometimes your insurer does not.
The chiropractic profession strives to deliver
the research to the insurers to cover essential treatment for
your spine while your Vancouver chiropractor strives
to communicate openly with your insurer for your optimal
care and with you for your best clinical outcome: relief of
pain.
YOUR INSURER
Administrators’ data doesn’t tell the entire
story about back pain. In one study comparing
self-reported low back pain to data assembled by
health administrations that track low back pain via billing codes
and such discovered that these two groups
don’t agree. Self-reported data regarding low back
pain (21.2%) was higher than administration’s data (10.2%).
Characteristics of low back pain patients founded on data differed
in a few areas – sex, health/behavior traits, and health care use
– leading to an underestimated prevalence of low back pain. (1)
Vancouver Disc Centers knows how prevalent back pain is and how it affects our back
pain patients like you.
YOUR BACK PAIN
In a study that specifically examined one influence on back pain - spinal stiffness - from the subjective
patient angle and the objective testing angle revealed
that these two measures don’t correlate well either. At least in
this comparison, actual input was from people: patients who
filled out questionnaires and doctors doing
objective tests. These findings directed the researchers to observe
that while these two sources do not correlate well, each is
important in the whole general picture of the
patient’s condition and care. (2) Your Vancouver chiropractor uses this evidence to care for your spine.
YOUR CHIROPRACTOR
Your Vancouver chiropractor is an evidence-based
chiropractor. Evidence leads the spine relief treatment plan at
Vancouver Disc Centers. An interesting study of chiropractic
students revealed how with
each year of learning they became
less vitalistic and more evidence-based. (3) After 7 or so years in school,
your chiropractor is ready to take care of Vancouver
back pain and neck pain patients. The evidence of useful chiropractic
spine care keeps growing! Researchers report today of
how the use of non-pharmacological pain management may inhibit
unnecessary use of opioids. Chiropractic is one type of non-drug
pain management offering. In a study of 101,221 spine pain patients, 1.55 to 2.03 times more non-chiropractic
patients got an opioid prescription than chiropractic patients. (4)
Further, Medicare beneficiary patients who utilize chiropractic are found
to have higher clinical outcomes (faster recovery, fewer back
surgeries a year later, less opioid-linked
disability, fewer traumatic falls and injuries, slower declines in activities
of daily living and disability over time) at less expense (fewer
medical doctors visits for low back pain, less opioid expense, less back-surgery
cost) with higher levels of satisfaction. (5) These aren’t
bad trade-offs for the Medicare cost system and for the Medicare patient.
CONTACT Vancouver Disc Centers
Listen to this PODCAST
by Dr. Lee Hazen and Cheri Hazen RN on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr.
Michael Johnson as they described how non-pharmacological alleviating
treatment of back pain using the Cox® Technic System of Spinal
Pain Management and other non-drug approaches help.
Make a non-surgical Vancouver
chiropractic care appointment with Vancouver Disc Centers. Your Vancouver chiropractor knows
your spine well and how to relieve it of pain: neck pain, arm pain, low back
pain or leg pain.